


Somewhere In Neverland

by S_Strilonde



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Illness, eventual angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-16 20:36:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2283741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Strilonde/pseuds/S_Strilonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxy Lalonde doesn't expect much out of her new volunteering job at the local children's hospital. She might have to take out the trash or do some paperwork, right? Pretty easy stuff. </p><p>She had never been so wrong in her entire life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Earning Your Stripes

_Pitter patter, pitter patter._

The sound of rain on the car window snapped Roxy Lalonde out of her momentary reverie. She brushed a stray piece of light hair out of her eyes, glancing at her watch. It was already two thirty, and she had to be at the hospital at two forty five. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a traffic jam. She sighed, looking out of the window. It wasn't like she minded being late. In fact, she was pretty thankful for the jam. It's not like anybody really likes volunteering at a hospital.

"You need to get outside more. Trust me, it'll be a good experience."

Her mother had insisted that she do this. Really, she wasn't thrilled. But it would be sort a rude to say not to doing something as morally right as volunteering at a children's hospital. So she said yes, and that's where they were now. In a car on the way to the hospital. The rest of the car ride was fairly pleasant, and they got there in time. With a tiny sigh, Roxy exited the car into the drizzle.

"Have fun, alright?"

The voice of her mother made her turn around, feeling drops of rain on the back of her coat.

"Kay, mom. There's only so much fun you can have in a hospital but I'll try." She rolled her eyes, before blowing her a little kiss and getting black lipstick all over her hand, which she wiped on her jeans. Graceful.

The walk through the parking lot to the hospital wasn't a long one, but most of it was spent dodging the puddles that were all over the asphalt. She pushed the doors open and her nose was immediately assaulted by the sharp smell of cleaning products. She took a sharp intake of breath before she approached the bored looking woman sitting at the front desk.

"Hey, excuse me? I'm here to do some uh, volunteering stuff. D'ya know where I could find nurse..." She fished a card out of the pocket of her coat. "Callie Ohpee? Opie? Yeah, her." She looked back up at the woman who gave her a look before pointing a finger at the hall to the left.

"Yeah. She's over in the rec room." The woman dropped her hand, yawning dramatically. Roxy rolled her eyes before nodding and walking over to the hallway, her skirt flouncing as she did so. Wait, which room did she say? The rec room or something? She wasn't exactly sure where that would be, and regretted not asking while she had the chance. If she came back the lady would probably be rude. She looked at the room numbers, trying to find one with the correct label. She pressed her lips together as she searched, her eyes brightening as she thought she saw the right room. The door was closed though, and it wasn't labeled. But it was the only one that wasn't labeled on the entire hallway, so that's gotta be the right one.

She paused a moment before twisting the handle and tentatively pushing it open. What was in the room surprised her enough to squeak out a quick "Sorry!" And closing it. She had accidentally opened up someone's room. A boy was lying down on the bed, some sort of mask strapped to his impossibly pale face. She had closed the door quickly enough, but before she had closed it she noticed that he was wearing a slightly odd pair of what looked like sunglasses. They were pointed, rather like scalene triangles. Bizarre, she thought. Well, that might be rude. He was probably super sick. She internally scolded herself before continuing her search for the what seemed like impossible to find rec room.

After not seeing the right one for a couple minutes, she was pretty relieved when she came across a room with the door slightly ajar. She looked inside to find some younger kids crowded around a woman sitting in a chair. She was reading a story, her voice animated as she voiced all of the different characters. The children seemed entranced, some of their mouths slightly open as they leaned forward.

"And then the little train climbed and climbed until he reached the very top of the hill. 'I did it!' He cried with joy. The little train was practically bouncing off of it's tracks with excitement. The little train could!" The woman smiled brightly before closing the book. Roxy leaned in the doorway, a smile playing at her black painted lips. While children's books weren't really her thing, the woman's enthusiasm was contagious. The kids began to clap and Roxy couldn't help but clap a little bit herself. It was a cute story. The woman who was reading looked up after hearing the clap from the doorway. She stood up, setting the book on the chair she was sitting at and shooing the kids away to go play before stepping over to Roxy.

"Hello, you must be one of the new volunteers here. I'm Callie, nice to meet you." She stuck a hand out and Roxy took it, shaking it a bit. The woman was tall, with whitish blonde chin length hair. Her eyes were an intensely bright shade of green, and she found herself staring into them for a second before blinking and shaking her head a little to clear it.

"Hiya, Callie. I'm Roxy. It took me a while to find this place but I hope I'm not late. I really liked your story." She wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say when you first meet someone, but it was good enough. Callie laughed a little. "Thank you." She turned a little to look at the kids before turning back to Roxy.

"We'll get started with the training when the other girl gets here. But for now, I'll give you your uniform." She quirked an eyebrow. Okay, uniforms weren't really her thing. Maybe these wouldn't be so bad, though. Callie left for a few moments, going to some sort of closet. While she was gone, Roxy found herself looking around at all the kids. Maybe this job wouldn't be that bad.

Her mouth dropped open when Callie returned with the uniform, a red and white striped apron-like garment. "Go ahead and put this on, love." Callie said, nodding to Roxy's coat. She slipped it off, putting the apron on and tying it up in the back.

"Thanks. So, uh. Is this like one of those candy striper things? I didn't know those were even a thing anymore." Callie nodded to her quip. "You're exactly right, as far as the candy striper thing goes. They are still around, at least they are at this hospital. I think it's a wonderful program that teaches young women and men compassion, and kindness, and-" She cut herself off with a tiny shake of her head. "Excuse me, I'm rambling. In short, yes. Candy stripers are still very much a thing and you can call yourself one as of now." Roxy nodded.

"Alright then, that's cool." She didn't have much to say, it was pretty straightforward. The real stuff would happen when the other volunteer came. Just as she thought that, the door opened a bit, causing them both to turn around.

"Hi, are you Callie? I was told to come to you for volunteering." The girl in the doorway was fairly short, with short black hair and thin rimmed oval glasses. Callie smiled. "Oh, you must be Jane! Nice to see you, I'm Callie." She turned to Roxy. "And this is Roxy, who's also volunteering here." Roxy gave Jane a little wave, which was returned with a little nod. "Since you two are starting on the same day, I'm going to train you together. That means you're going to be doing a lot of work together, you may as well make friends!" That seemed easy enough to her. Jane seemed sweet. Callie gave Jane her uniform, which she put on with more of a positive reaction than Roxy.

"Lovely colors." She commented. The apron looked good on her. She kind of looked like the type of person that wore aprons on a regular basis. Hm. Callie clapping her hands together turned both of the girl's attentions to her.

"It's about time we get started, isn't it? Since you both are new, you'll be doing simple tasks. Your first task is to shred papers!" Callie still had a huge smile on her face, while Jane and Roxy's faces dropped a bit. She knew that this wouldn't be fun, but she didn't really expect to be doing such boring, little tasks.

When Callie left them with the papers and shredder, Roxy turned to Jane and shrugged.

"We've gotta earn our stripes somehow, right?"


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh my god, Jane." The blue eyed girl had managed to spill an entire tray of meds on the floor. It had been about a month since they had started volunteering, and Callie was finally allowing them to actually do tasks that interacted with the patients, for example, delivering small medications. Jane huffed, kneeling down to pick up the little bottles. "I tripped." She muttered. Roxy giggled a bit. "Yeah, I saw." Her own tray was balanced in her hands as they walked, turning a corner to another hallway.

"D'ya think we'll mess up? I mean, more than you just did." Roxy teased. Jane rolled her eyes before shrugging. "Well, I'm going to hope we won't. There isn't much we could mess up here. Heaven forbid we give the wrong medication to a patient."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Man, that would suck."

"More than suck! That could actually be life-threatening."

"Jeez, don't scare me like that. I'm not that scatterbrained."

Roxy looked down at her pills nervously. She wasn't scatterbrained, but it was still sort of nerve wracking to think that she could potentially get it wrong. Maybe Callie was wrong to entrust them to do such a big, yet small task. Shaking her head a little to clear it, she kept walking. She wasn't going to fuck this up, all she had to do was read the numbers on the bottles and take them to the correct room. It wasn't rocket science or anything.

Jane glanced down at her bottles. "Oh, that's the room I'm supposed to deliver this to." She looked up at a room to the left before glancing back at Roxy. "Don't worry too much about the job, you'll do great." Roxy smiled back at her before Jane opened up the door, closing it behind her. Roxy looked down at her own bottles. The first room was right next to Jane's. Well, at least she didn't have to go searching for it. The first medication dropoff went pretty well, the patient was a young girl who seemed a little confused to see a volunteer deliver her medication instead of a nurse, but otherwise she was pretty sweet.

The rest of the deliveries went well, and Roxy's confidence had skyrocketed as she went to deliver the last pill bottle. Yeah, she's got this. it was a hell of a lot easier than she had expected (but mostly because she had freaked herself out with the possibility of delivering them to the wrong patient.) She pushed open the last door, almost empty tray in her hands. Taking a step inside, she found herself freezing in her place.

It was him. The boy with the pointy shades. The one who's room she had accidentally barged into on her first day of volunteering. She blinked a couple times before going next to his bed, setting the pills down on a small table that was seated beside him. "Hi, I'm Roxy. I don't know if you remember me but a while back I accidentally busted in here 'cause I thought this was the right room. It wasn't. Sorry about that." She gave him a nervous smile, which he didn't return. He didn't say anything at all, actually. Her smile faltered as he stayed silent, and she just continued on. "I'm probably gonna be bringing you these for a while. It's nice to meet you..." She scanned the room for a name, because he probably wouldn't give her one. He wasn't really the talking type, it seemed. A paper on the wall had a name on it. "...Dirk." She smiled again, less confidently. He just gave her a tiny nod, and she sighed. Okay, he at least acknowledged her.

She looked at the table next to him. It was pretty empty, other than the pills she had placed there and some papers. "Do you want some water or something? To take those with. I can get you some." She looked up at him. Nothing. Man, that kid had mastered a poker face. He did give her a little shrug. Or she thought it was a shrug. It could have just been him breathing or something.

"I'll take that as a no, then." She sighed. Okay, she knew when to take a hint. She turned around towards the door, looking back before she left.

"So...I'll be seein' ya around, then?" She didn't really expect an answer, but he just shrugged lightly. That was good enough for her. When she opened the door, Jane was waiting for her outside of it. Closing the door behind her, she met up with her.

"So?" Jane raised an eyebrow, a little smile on her face. "How did it go? You took quite a while in there." Roxy gave her a smile back. "It went pretty well. Other than the last delivery, that is." Jane tilted her head, a slightly concerned look on her face. "What happened? You didn't mess it up somehow, did you?" Roxy snorted at the comment.

"I see you have a lotta faith in me." She smiled a bit again as they began to walk back to the rec room. "It's not really my fault but I knew the guy. Well, I didn't _know_ him. I just knew who he was, kinda. On the first day here I accidentally barged into his room because I thought it was the rec room. Whoops." Jane nodded, the corner of her mouth twitching up.

"I can see why that would complicate things. Did you end up having a laugh about it? Did he even remember you?" Roxy shook her head.

"Dunno if he remembered me. He didn't say anything. And I don't mean he didn't say anything about me, he just didn't say anythin' at all. Not a word, it was kinda awkward." She shrugged. Jane looked surprised. "Not a word at all? That's a bit unusual, isn't it? Well, I don't think he really intended to be rude. He probably just didn't have a lot to say or something." Jane assured Roxy.

"Well, I dunno if he didn't have a lot to say. But I'm pretty sure he didn't mean to be rude either. He kinda shrugged once or twice and I think he nodded, so he at least acknowledged me. That made it a lil' better." Jane nodded in response as she pushed open the doors to the rec room. Callie was sitting in a chair, reading to a couple of kids. That seemed to be something she was really good at, Roxy thought. Just as they entered, Callie closed the book. Once she noticed the girls' presences, she stood up and made her way through the kids over to them.

"So, how did it go?" She asked, clasping her hands together. They both nodded. "It went well." Jane answered. Callie smiled widely. "Wonderful! I have another task for you two, but don't worry." She noticed their slightly exasperated faces. It was the end of the day and they were both tired. "This one won't go into effect now, it's more of a long-term thing." They nodded.

"Now that you two are going to be working with patients, you will have one patient that you will take care of. You'll still be working with some others, but this one will be your primary patient. You'll bring them medications, and just make them comfortable!" Well, that seemed easy enough. Roxy nodded again before an idea popped into her head.

"Okay, uh. I know we're probably not gonna be able to choose who we wanna take care of but maybe I can request someone? I really wanna get to know the guy in room 612." Callie looked slightly surprised, but nodded anyways. "Well, I'm the one who chooses who you take care of and I have no problem with it. I'm sure you have your reasons for wanting that, but I can definitely put him in your care." Roxy wondered why Callie seemed so confused by her wanting him in particular. Maybe she was aware of his odd mannerisms or something.   
  
Callie turned to the kids to check on them before looking back at the two. "Well, that's it for today. See you again soon." She waved at them as they left. Roxy nodded to her, before smiling to herself. She was pretty determined at this point. Dirk had really piqued her interest, and she wanted to get him to talk. Or just kind of react in general. Either one was fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! excuse my shortish chapters/taking forever to update. i'm a slow writer.


End file.
